Saturday, August 22, 2009

Peaches, Granite and Pizza???

Last night I finally finished canning the wonderful peaches my sister Doranda picked up for me on her way to my house last weekend. They were a great deal $7.50/box. I really should have got to them a few days earlier. My family loves to eat home canned fruit, but doesn't want to help can it. Does Henny Penny sound familiar? I usually convince (force) them to help. Most years we do peaches, pears, apples, applesauce, and plum jam. Last year we also did pickled asparagus (James personal favorite), tomato sauce and chopped tomatoes. They were a nice addition so I plan on doing them each year. This year I might make a second attempt at salsa. Last time I made it, 10 years ago or so, my family didn't like it very much. I have a new recipe I will try this year, lets hope for good results.

As many of you know I have been remodeling my kitchen for awhile. I am taking it very slow and so far we haven't had any disruptions in using the kitchen. The counter tops are taking me the longest. I just can't make up my mind about what granite to go with. I have looked almost everywhere. We finally thought we narrowed it down and had high hopes to pick out our actual slab today. We drove all the way to a slab yard in Idaho, just to find out they are moving to Spokane and many of there slabs are already over here. No luck today, maybe next time :) Jim is so tired of looking at granite, so maybe you can help us. Here is a link to the yard we went to today. http://www.montanastonegallery.com/gallery_view.asp?sort=%20ASC&type=%20AND%20Material_ID=1&color=%20AND%20Color_ID%3E0

Some of the colors we are considering are:
Golden Ray
Pietra Imperiale
Mountain Mocha
Talisman
Copper Canyon
Giallo Cappella
Giallo Cappella Standard
New Venetian Gold
I would love to hear your opinion. Remember each slab can be so different. After you click on the color you can click on the left on each load number and see how different they are. Also, keep in mind our kitchen cabinets are very honey oak and stainless/black appliances.

On the way home from Idaho, we ran across a pizza place having a grand opening. Since they had jumping castles and we had two of the kids with us, we HAD to stop. The pizza was good, but expensive. Since they had free Slurpee's and the jumping castles, we made out okay :)


6 comments:

ckm said...

We did granite in our kitchen as well. We gutted the kitchen - decided that was the best way to go because when we were looking at homes, we saw several that had gorgeous countertops, but dated cabinets. We would have to destroy the beautiful countertops to replace the cabinets. We looked into refacing the cabinets, but that ended up being just as expensive as replacing them (but would have been cheaper to not replace the countertops). So ... we did both with the house we bought. Ripped out the entire thing and changed the floorplan.

I notice you love the granite that has movement. It is beautiful!

Decisions decisions ... Do you have someone helping you with colors, etc. You can see our remodeling process on our blog.

Have fun! I'm glad I'm done with ours. It was tough, but worth it! John is going to have a hard time convincing me to move ;o)

The Abel family said...

I saw your BEAUTIFUL kitchen!!! You did a great job. Rebecca was telling me how nice it was. I am going more simple and less expensive. I can't bring myself to get rid of the cabinets because they are such good quality. I just wanted to give my kitchen a little face lift. So far so good. Now, if I could just pick a granite....

ckm said...

See if any of your granite companies have remnants. Some companies have warehouses of remnants. You might be able to find granite remnants for your kitchen. I think you would be amazed what is sitting around as remnants! Just a thought ... and tons cheaper! I have found some granite $45+ square ft marked down to $12 sq ft.

We also had our granite sealed with "granite shield" - a permanent sealant that has to be put on professionally through an authorized dealer.

ckm said...

(I replied to your question on my blog - so posting here too). My granite is 2 cm with additional material added for the "lip" of the countertop hanging under towards the cabinet ... (2 cm with an additional 2cm seamed together at the lip - you can't see the seam). It was easy to go this route since the granite didn't have a lot of movement. You might not notice a seam with the other styles of granite. We had our kitchen design sent to the countertop company where they came up with the measurements. They double checked once the kitchen was installed. The countertops were already being cut to size so they were hoping John had installed it close to specs. John was off only by 1/16 of an inch. The countertop owner was impressed.

Since you are installing over existing cabinets, I would definitely look into pre-fabrication options. It is still granite and still great quality. You just don't need to necessarily live without kitchen countertops for nearly as long. I even heard a commercial on the radio last week about a company that would install granite over your existing countertops. Sounded interesting to me.

The Abel family said...

Wow Corin, $45 down to $12. You can't even find granite for $45 here. It is usally about $80. I guess that does include installation. I will look into the granite shield. That sounds good.

jane said...

You've probably already decided, but I like the look of the mountain mocha, and I think it would look good with both the honey oak kitchen cabinets. I'm excited to see how it all looks after you've finished!